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February 2018
Are asylum seekers more likely to work with more
inclusive labor market access regulations?
WWZ Working Paper 2018/08 Michaela Slotwinski, Alois Stutzer, Roman Uhlig
A publication of the Center of Business and Economics (WWZ), University of Basel.
WWZ 2018 and the authors. Reproduction for other purposes than the personal use needs the permission of the authors.
Universität Basel Corresponding Author:
Peter Merian-Weg 6 Prof. Dr. Alois Stutzer
4052 Basel, Switzerland Tel: +41 (61) 207 33 61
wwz.unibas.ch Mail: alois.stutzer@unibas.chAre asylum seekers more likely to work with more inclusive labor
market access regulations?∗
Michaela Slotwinski† Alois Stutzer‡ and Roman Uhlig§
March 1, 2018
Abstract
In the face of recent refugee migration, early integration of asylum seekers into the labor
market has been proposed as an important mechanism for easing their economic and social lot
in the short as well as in the long term. However, little is known about the policies that foster
or hamper their participation in the labor market, in particular during the important initial
period of their stay in the host country. In order to evaluate whether inclusive labor market
policies increase the labor market participation of asylum seekers, we exploit the variation in
asylum policies in Swiss cantons to which asylum seekers are randomly allocated. During our
study period from 2011 to 2014, the employment rate among asylum seekers varied between
0% and 30.2% across cantons. Our results indicate that labor market access regulations are
responsible for a substantial proportion of these differences, in which an inclusive regime
increases participation by 11 percentage points. The marginal effects are larger for asylum
seekers who speak a language that is linguistically close to the one in their host canton.
Summary
Inclusive labor market access regulations substantially increase the employment chances
of asylum seekers, in particular if the language distance is short.
Keywords: Asylum policy, asylum seekers, economic integration, employment ban,
labor market access regulation
JEL classifications: F22, J61, J15
∗
We are grateful to Christin Achermann, Didier Ruedin, Stefanie Kurt, and Anita Manatschal for
helpful comments. Data on labor market access regulations was kindly provided by Denise Efionayi
and Didier Ruedin from the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM). We acknowledge
financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation and its National Center of Competence in
Research - The Migration-Mobility Nexus.
†
University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics, Peter Merian-Weg 6, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
Phone: +41 (0)61 207 33 75, email: michaela.slotwinski@unibas.ch.
‡
University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics, Peter Merian-Weg 6, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
Phone: +41 (0)61 207 33 61, email: alois.stutzer@unibas.ch.
§
University of Basel, Faculty of Business and Economics, Peter Merian-Weg 6, 4002 Basel, Switzerland.
Email: roman.uhlig@unibas.ch.
11 Introduction
Refugee migration is likely to challenge Western democracies for years and to spur discussions
about humane as well as efficient asylum processes (see, e.g., Hatton 2017 or Hangartner and
Sarvimäki 2017 for recent analyses). How asylum seekers make a living features prominently
in this debate (see, e.g., Bansak et al. 2016). It colors the discourse beyond the treatment of
refugees and seems to affect attitudes towards migrants in general.1 This is because the economic
integration of asylum seekers faces a dilemma. On the one hand, there is the concern that easy
access to the labor market attracts migrants,2 on the other, restrictive policies preventing early
economic integration might lead to high long-term costs for the receiving countries. In fact, a
recent study finds large negative effects of a long initial employment ban on long-term labor
force participation (Marbach et al., 2017). In order to assess any trade-off, it is thus key to
understand how regulation of the asylum process affects the employment of asylum seekers, i.e.
the most fundamental resource for economic self-sufficiency.
In this paper, we analyze the effect of specific regulations regarding labor market access, social
assistance and integration on the labor force participation of asylum seekers, i.e. people who have
applied for asylum but have not yet received a decision. The institutional setting in Switzerland
is well-suited to learning about conditions fostering or hampering the economic integration of
asylum seekers. First, while there is national asylum legislation, the Swiss federal system offers
its states (the cantons) substantial discretion in implementation of the law. This results in a
significant variation in cantonal practices in integration measures, social assistance, and labor
market access regulations, as documented by an in-depth survey undertaken by the Swiss Forum
for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) (Wichmann et al., 2011). Second, the evaluation
is not hampered by any self-selection of asylum seekers into different cantons, because they
are randomly allocated to the cantons and are not allowed to relocate until the end of their
asylum application process. Finally, it is very unlikely that asylum seekers look for employment
outside the canton they were assigned to, as the probability of finding a position and getting
the approval of the other canton is very low.3 We can therefore compare the Swiss cantons as
independent, closed economies when it comes to asylum seekers.
1
An analysis in the context of the UK debate on immigration is, for example, provided by Mulvey
(2010).
2
Despite its prominence in the policy debate (Mayblin, 2016), in a recent review of the empirical litera-
ture only limited evidence has been found for this claim however (James and Mayblin, 2016). Specifically
for the Swiss experience, Holzer et al. (2000) offer an evaluation of the asylum policy during the 1980s
and 1990s, finding that the more restrictive recognition practice after the urgent federal resolution in
October 1990 reduced applications from the traditional origin countries but not for people fleeing from
the Balkan conflict.
3
Wichmann et al. (2011, p. 89) report on emerging tensions between cantons if, for example, an asylum
seeker from the canton of Basel-Stadt wants to start working in the neighboring canton Basel-Land.
1In Switzerland as in most Western countries, asylum seekers represent a small fraction of the
foreign population,4 but a prominent one in the public debate. During our study period from
2011 to 2014, the employment rate among employable asylum seekers varied between 0% and
30.2% across cantons (with a standard deviation of 6.0%). Our results indicate that labor
market access regulations are responsible for a substantial fraction of these differences, whereby
an inclusive regime on average increases participation by 11 percentage points. In contrast,
the activation and education of asylum seekers in integration programs is a substitute to early
employment and related to slightly lower employment rates. We do not find any evidence that
more or less generous social welfare payments are related to the take-up of employment. Further,
our results indicate that inclusive labor market access regulations are more beneficial for asylum
seekers who speak a language that is closer to the language in their canton of residence (the
main languages in Switzerland being German, French and Italian).
Our findings complement recent work on the economics and politics of refugee migration and
integration. In an excellent review, Dustmann et al. (2017) emphasize the important role of
the asylum process for economic integration, stating that “clear rules and support mechanisms
are needed early on in the migration history, together with fast processing times, fast access to
the labour market and active integration programs” (p. 501). Our evidence shows that small
policy differences can play a decisive role in the economic inclusion of asylum seekers. Relatedly,
Couttenier et al. (2016) report results indicating that more inclusive labor market regulations
mitigate the risk that victimized asylum seekers will commit crimes. The effect of foreign citizens’
language skills on the labor market integration of refugees has been studied by Auer (2018). He
exploits the random placement of asylum seekers across cantons in Switzerland, and thus across
language regions, as a natural experiment. For asylum seekers registered as jobseekers, Auer finds
positive effects on the probability of being employed if initial placements include good language
matches. In another study exploiting the Swiss institutional setting, Hainmueller et al. (2016)
show that long-term employment chances of refugees are substantially reduced when asylum
processes take longer. Further, Marbach et al. (2017) show that an extension of the employment
ban for Kosovar refugees in Germany reduced their long-term employment prospects. These
latter findings underscore the importance of labor market access regulations for asylum seekers.
The remainder of our paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the institutional setting
and provides an overview of the policy options in the asylum process at the sub-federal level.
The data used in our analysis are presented in Section 3. Section 4 presents the results of our
empirical analyses. Section 5 closes with some concluding remarks.
4
Between 2011 and 2016, on average, 27,190 individuals applied for asylum in Switzerland per year.
This amounts to about 0.33% of the Swiss population of permanent residents, including roughly 25%
foreigners.
22 Institutional setting
The asylum process in Switzerland is a shared responsibility of the federal and the cantonal
governments. We first describe the framework of the asylum process at the federal level and
then highlight the variation in its implementation in the 26 Swiss cantons. The remarks on
the institutional setting prepare for our detailed description of the data and the corresponding
coding in Section 3.
2.1 Federal asylum process
People who seek asylum in Switzerland are initially brought to one of the six accommodation and
provisioning centers run by the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM).5 The staff in these centers
takes the initial decision on whether an asylum request is to be processed or dismissed. If an
application is dismissed under Art. 31a of the federal asylum law (abbr.: AsylG), the applicant
is obliged to leave the country.6 If the prerequisites for processing the asylum application are
met, the applicants are granted a residence permit N – asylum seeker - for the rest of the asylum
process. After a maximum of three months in the accommodation and provisioning centers, the
asylum seekers are assigned to one of the 26 Swiss cantons. The asylum seekers have no impact
on this allocation process. It is solely determined by an allocation key based on the population
size of the cantons according to Art. 21 of the asylum decree 1 (abbr.: AsylV 1). In consequence,
this leads to a virtually random allocation. The asylum seekers usually have no opportunity to
relocate to other cantons until a final decision about their case is made.7 How long the asylum
procedure takes differs widely from case to case.8 If asylum is granted, the applicant receives
refugee status with a right to stay (permit B ). If the asylum application is rejected, the SEM
5
These centers (Ger.: Eidgenössische Empfangs- und Verfahrenszentren) are in Basel, Bern, Chiasso,
Vallorbe, Kreuzlingen and Altstätten. For a more detailed description of the Swiss asylum procedure
visit https://www.sem.admin.ch/sem/en/home/asyl/asylverfahren.html
6
An asylum application will be dismissed if the request is clearly unjustified or abusive. This is often
the case if the applicant is able to return to a safe home or third country, or if asylum was already
requested in a safe third country under the Dublin Procedure.
7
A change of cantons could be authorized by the SEM in cases of grave danger or family reunion and if
both cantons involved give their consent. The right to family reunification usually only includes spouses
and minor children/siblings (Hofmann et al., 2014, p. 18).
8
The main focus of recent revisions of the asylum legislation was to reduce the waiting period
for asylum seekers. In 2016, the SEM reported that it takes, on average, 174 days until the official
hearing for non-Dublin, and non-fast-track procedures, takes place (see https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/
aktuelle-themen/beschleunigte-asylverfahren-gerechter-guenstiger-schneller-ld.7501).
Note that the SEM decides after further hearings on whether asylum is granted. Couttenier et al. (2016,
p. 45) mention a period of, on average, about 300 to 400 days for the completion of credible asylum
requests between 2008 and 2010. Hainmueller et al. (2016, p. 2) document an average waiting time of
664 days (std. dev. 478 days) in their sample between 1994 and 2004. In extreme cases, applicants had
to wait for several years until a final decision was reached (Lindenmeyer et al., 2008, p. 53).
3has to examine whether it is possible to expel the asylum seeker from Switzerland. There might
be humanitarian or technical reasons that prevent an expulsion. In such cases, the residence
permit F – provisionally admitted foreigners/refugees (PAFs) - is given. It allows for temporary
stay and subsidiary protection. The name of the permit might be confusing, since most PAFs
will stay in Switzerland for a long time, if not for life (Wichmann et al., 2011, p. 84).
2.2 Cantonal asylum processes
There is a distinctly federal structure in the Swiss asylum system (see, e.g., Belser 2015, Kurt
2017 or Spörnli et al. 1998). The national law leaves the cantons substantial freedom in setting
their regulations when implementing the law. This has led to widely different asylum practices
across cantons. In particular, the host cantons are responsible for the accommodation of asy-
lum seekers, for the promotion of integration, for social welfare (partly financed by the federal
government), for support in cases of personal hardship, and for regulation of access to the labor
market. In order to understand any variation in the employment of asylum seekers, differences
in integration measures, social welfare and labor market access policies are potentially most
important.
Labor market access
Asylum seekers are initially prohibited from participating in the labor market due to a federal
employment ban of three months starting with the filing of the asylum application (art. 43
para. 1 AsylG).9 After the ban is over, a potential employer has to apply for a work permit
from the cantonal immigration authorities prior to employing an asylum seeker. The differences
in cantonal practices mainly result from the conditions and circumstances under which such
permits are issued (Wichmann et al., 2011, p. 89). The differences primarily emerge along five
dimensions: A first dimension relates to the time asylum seekers are formally excluded from
the labor market. Cantons have the right to extend the federal ban of three months to up to
six months.10 Second, cantonal authorities can decide to grant work permits exclusively for
certain industries with a shortage of labor (mainly agriculture, hospitality, construction and
other low-wage sectors). Nearly half of all cantons use such restrictions (Wichmann et al., 2011,
p. 89). Third, Art. 21 of the Federal Act on Foreign Nationals (FNA) states that people in the
domestic workforce should be given priority on the labor market (in German: Inländervorrang).
9
In principle, the employment ban should account for the time the authorities need to investigate the
main motivation behind an asylum request. Thus, there should be no incentive for economic migrants to
apply for asylum (Dustmann et al., 2017, p. 513).
10
In a statement from the Conference of Cantonal Directors of Social Affairs (SODK) on a revision of
the asylum legislation in 2012, four cantons (AI, JU, UR, ZH) stated that they might lengthen the time
of the ban after which asylum seekers can obtain a work permit, while one canton (NW) gave no answer
(SODK, 2012, Annex 2).
4This means that a foreign person can only be employed if a suitable domestic employee cannot
be found - a regulation that also applies to asylum seekers (Hofmann et al., 2014, p. 16).11
Cantons differ widely in how strictly they implement this article. According to responses to the
survey of Wichmann et al. (2011), there are cantons in which it is necessary to prove that an
employment position was posted at the regional employment center but no suitable domestic
candidate could be found prior to being able to employ an asylum seeker, while other cantons
did not mention such restrictions. An important fourth dimension refers to the duration of the
application process for a work permit. While it is rather simple to obtain a permit in some
cantons12 , it is a rather complicated process in others (Lindenmeyer et al., 2008, p. 42). Long
and complicated application processes are especially unfavorable for asylum seekers, who are
more likely to find work in sectors where a quick start of employment is essential. This might be
of particular relevance in many of the industries to which the asylum seekers are granted access.13
Fifth, some cantons impose some kind of salary deduction for employed asylum seekers, in order
to cover their health insurance and/or rent. This deduction is subtracted on top of a special
charge gainfully employed asylum seekers face under Art. 86 AsylG.14
Basic assistance
Asylum seekers are generally entitled to social welfare (Art. 81 AsylG). The cantons are respon-
sible for the amount and distribution (Art. 82 AsylG). The social benefits are between 40 and
60% lower than the social benefits suggested by the Swiss Conference of Social Welfare (SKOS)
for residents (Efionayi-Mäder, 2012, p. 58). The directive envisages that basic assistance is sup-
plied in-kind rather than in the form of cash. Most cantons apply a two stage process in which
asylum seekers first spend a considerable time in collective housing before being allocated to an
apartment. In many cantons, asylum seekers in the early stage of the asylum process get pocket
money ranging from 1 to 3 Swiss francs a day. In the second stage, the cash transfer increases to
between 320 and 768 Swiss francs per month, the mean transfer lying between 400 and 500 Swiss
francs (Wichmann et al., 2011, p. 86). The cantonal expenses for the basic assistance of asylum
seekers are covered by the federal government.15 In the year 2012, cantons were compensated
with 55.91 Swiss francs per day and asylum seeker, with some adjustments to the costs for rent
and health insurance (SODK, 2012, Annex 1, p. 3). An inter-cantonal comparison of basic as-
11
For the future, it is planned to consider PAFs as domestic employees, see https://www.admin.ch/
opc/de/federal-gazette/2016/8917.pdf.
12
For example, cantons like Vaud offer close guidance and information on how to effectively apply for
the permits (Wichmann et al., 2011, p. 89).
13
Wichmann et al. (2011, p. 89) document that it takes more than ten days until a permit is granted
for asylum seekers in six cantons. In some of them the waiting period is even longer than a month
(Lindenmeyer et al., 2008, p. 42).
14
The article states that asylum seekers are obliged to pay a special charge of up to 10% of their salary
to cover the cost of the asylum procedure, a possible expulsion, and social assistance.
15
This also applies to PAFs in their first seven years of stay.
5sistance to the asylum seekers shows strong heterogeneity in its generosity. While some cantons,
for example, offer free tickets for public transport and support for exceptional expenses, other
cantons only cover basic needs like food, housing, and health insurance (SODK, 2012, Annex
2).16
Integration promotion
Since 2008, cantons receive an earmarked lump-sum transfer for every asylum seeker and PAF
(“Integrationspauschale” of 6,000 CHF), to cover at least part of the costs of integration measures
(Wichmann et al., 2011). There is no federal transfer for the integration of asylum seekers. If
projects for the latter group are undertaken, they are financed by the cantons. Some cantons use
some of the lump-sums for cross-subsidization, while others refrain from additional expenditures.
Wichmann et al. (2011) report that, according to self-statements, eleven cantons dedicate their
own resources to the promotion of the integration of asylum seekers. Integration measures, for
example, involve basic and advanced language courses, courses for general education, occupation
programs, as well as specific integration measures to promote employment-relevant skills, such
as (paid or unpaid) internships or job coaches.
3 Data
3.1 Employment rates of asylum seekers
Our dependent variable captures the rate of employment of asylum seekers who are employable
by canton and country of origin. The rate is measured as of December 31st in the years of
2011 to 2014.17 Figure 1 shows the variation in the participation rate of asylum seekers in
paid employment across cantons in 2011 (i.e., the year the regulations are measured). The
employment rate was highest in the canton of Grisons (30.2%) and lowest in the canton of
Appenzell Innerrhoden, with no asylum seekers employed.
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics of the employment rate, once on the canton-year level,
and also disaggregated to the canton-year-nationality level, leaving us with 4,014 observations.
Employment rates vary substantially across nationalities. Table 3 in the Appendix lists them
for asylum seekers from the nine largest nationality groups in Switzerland. While about 30%
of the asylum seekers from Sri Lanka were employed in 2011, the corresponding rate for people
from Eritrea was 1%.
16
A detailed list of the benefits payed by cantons to asylum seekers can be found in Annex 2 of SODK
(2012).
17
The data is publicly available and provided by the SEM. The data for 2011 is available at https://
www.sem.admin.ch/sem/de/home/publiservice/statistik/asylstatistik/archiv/2011/12.html.
6Figure 1: Employment rates of asylum seekers in 2011
Employment rate
13.9 - 30.2
11.7 - 13.9
8 - 11.7
5.5 - 8
0 - 5.5
Data source: Swiss State Secretariat for Migration.
3.2 Cantonal asylum policies
The main explanatory variables on the different aspects of the asylum policies implemented in
the cantons are based on unpublished raw data provided by the Swiss Forum for Migration
and Population Studies (SFM). The data is based on a survey of representatives of cantonal
immigration authorities and is extensively discussed in Wichmann et al. (2011). The cantons
Nidwalden and Thurgau did not participate in the survey, leaving us with data for 24 cantons.
We define three main measures of cantonal asylum policies:
• Labor market access is an index quantifying the openness of the labor market for asylum
seekers in a given canton, ranging from 0 (restricted access) to 1 (most inclusive ac-
cess). The index captures four aspects: i) the temporal expansion of the employment ban
(yes/no), ii) the duration of the work permit process, iii) whether there is restricted access
to some sectors or strict application of the priority rule for domestic workers (yes/no), and
iv) whether there are additional salary deductions (yes/no). For each aspect, the score is
1 if a canton does not apply an additional restriction and 0 otherwise. For the duration of
the work permit process, a canton scores a 0 for a duration exceeding a month, 0.5 for a
duration of between 10 and 30 days and a 1 for a shorter duration. The index is calculated
as an unweighted average of the scores in the four categories. The labor market is thus
considered to be more open, the higher a canton’s score in this index.
• Basic assistance is an index quantifying the amount of social welfare and assistance in a
canton ranging from 0 (merely basic needs are covered) to 1 (most generous in supplying
social welfare). The measure captures six aspects: i) the monthly amount of social welfare
7Table 1: Descriptive statistics
No. of obs. Mean Std. dev. Min Max
Dependent variable
Disagregated by country of origin:
Employment rate 4,014 4.935 15.079 0 100
Employment rate [2011 only] 1,028 5.589 15.848 0 100
Employment rate [in 2011; excluding cantons 1,018 5.644 15.916 0 100
applying an employment ban]
Aggregated by canton:
Employment rate 96 7.692 6.026 0 30.2
Independent variables
Labor market access 24 0.65 0.252 0.167 1
Integration 24 0.507 0.362 0 1
Basic assistance 24 0.554 0.117 0.42 0.75
Control variables
Population size [in thousands] 96 324.7 334.0 15.7 1’446.4
Population size, ln 96 12.145 1.146 9.662 14.185
Share of foreign residents 96 21.460 7.14 9.82 40.95
Rate of unemployment 96 2.771 1.26 0.9 6.0
GDP per capita [in thousands] 96 76.6 28.0 50.7 167.0
GDP per capita, ln 96 11.197 0.292 10.833 12.026
Yes-share “against illegal immigration” 96 47.23 8.20 30.3 59.3
Fraction of employment in
- catering and lodging 96 5.524 2.649 2.7 14.6
- agriculture 96 4.489 2.86 0.04 12.91
- construction 96 7.883 2.085 4.157 12.038
Fraction of Romance language speakers 96 31.066 36.675 0 94.606
Interaction with language distance
Language distance 3,621 0.905 0.084 0.061 1
Note: If not stated otherwise, the data refers to the sample period 2011 to 2014.
Data sources: Wichmann et al. (2011), Melitz and Toubal (2014), Swiss State Secretariat for Migration,
and Federal Statistical Office.
a single asylum seeker receives excluding rent (over 600, between 400-599, or 300-399 Swiss
francs), ii) the monthly amout a married couple with two minor children would receive
excluding rent (over 1500, between 1250-1499, or 1000-1249 Swiss francs), iii) how the
expenses for food, and iv) cloths are covered (cash benefits, vouchers, or in kind), v) how
the canton covers health insurance expenses (by handing out the money, or by directly
paying for the premium), and vi) whether the asylum seekers receive free tickets for public
8transport (yes, only after assured necessity, or no). For each aspect, the score of 1 is
given if the first (most generous) policy is applied for the respective aspect, a 0.5 for the
intermediate cases and 0 for the most restrictive policy. A canton could thus score a
maximum of 6 points. The index is calculated dividing the number of points of a canton
by the maximum score possible.
• Integration is an index quantifying the integration efforts of cantons. It ranges from 0 (the
canton does not offer any integration measures for asylum seekers) to 1 (comparatively
large number of integration projects). This index captures three aspects: i) what kind
of social integration projects are offered for adult asylum seekers (0 points for none, 0.5
points for basic integration measures, and 1 point for advanced integration measures)18 ,
ii) what kind of professional projects are offered for adult asylum seekers (0 points for
none, 0.5 points for courses about the Swiss labor law, individual career counseling or
coaching, and 1 point if mentoring projects, internship programs in the private or public
sector or advanced trainings on the job are offered), and iii) whether the canton dedicates
own resources to the promotion of the integration of asylum seekers (1 point for yes, 0
points for no). A canton could thus score a maximum of 3 points. For the corresponding
index, the number of points are again divided by the maximum score possible.
Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for the three independent variables. Regarding labor
market access, one fourth of the cantons have a rather inclusive regime. These cantons refrain
from imposing any further extension of the employment ban, do not restrict employment to
specific sectors, apply no additional salary deductions, and have low administrative hurdles
when it comes to the employment of asylum seekers. Half of the cantons qualify as applying
some form of integration promotion for asylum seekers. None of the cantons in the sample scores
the minimum in the index for basic assistance.
3.3 Control variables
We incorporate a range of additional variables in our multiple regression analyses in order to
capture further determinants of the employment rate of asylum seekers. Moreover, we want to
control for factors that might be correlated with the cantonal policies as well as the participation
18
Basic social integration projects include basic language courses, general education courses, courses in
civic education, some kind of daily structure schemes and payed or unpayed community work. Advanced
integration measures include advanced language courses as well as the promotion of integration in the
first or second job market. If a canton offers all of the mentioned basic social integration projects, it
receives 1 point as well.
9of asylum seekers in the labor market.19 We concentrate on six factors: First, possible economies
of scale in the economic integration of asylum seekers are captured by the logarithm of the size
of the permanent resident population in a canton. The population size is the main variable in
the allocation key of asylum seekers and therefore highly correlated with the absolute number
of asylum seekers assigned to a canton. Second, we expect that it is more difficult for asylum
seekers to find employment in cantons with a tight labor market. We therefore include the
cantonal rate of unemployment as an additional explanatory variable.20 Third, as an additional
measure for the state of the economy in a canton, we include the logarithm of the GDP per
capita. Fourth, in order to control for more specific demand-side factors, we take the industrial
composition of a canton into account. We do this by regarding the sectors with a relatively
high demand for unskilled workers, i.e. catering and lodging, agriculture and construction. In
particular, these are the industries to which some cantons restrict labor market access. We
include the size of these three sectors measured as the fraction of employment in percent of
total employment in the canton. Fifth, we further include the cantonal foreigner share in the
population and a measure for attitudes towards asylum seekers. Together with the size of the
construction, and lodging and catering sector, these factors have been identified as the main
determinants of cantonal asylum policies (see, e.g., Spörnli et al., 1998). Reservations towards
asylum seekers are approximated by the share of yes votes in the popular vote “against illegal
immigration” (in German: Volksinitiative ‘gegen die illegale Einwanderung’), which was held in
December 1996 and was seeking for a more restrictive asylum law in Switzerland. The latter
control factors help us to exclude that any effect we measure is driven by the fact that cantons
in which voters hold stronger reservations towards asylum seekers have more restrictive policies
and at the same time also employ fewer asylum seekers. The sixth factor captures the proportion
of people in a canton who speak a Romance language, i.e. French, Italian or Rhaeto-Romansh.
This variable might capture some unobserved cultural differences across cantons in Switzerland.
Descriptive statistics for the control variables are provided in Table 1.
3.4 Language distance
In order to explore the interaction between access regulation of the labor market and language
barriers, we incorporate a variable capturing the language distance (which might well also be
correlated with cultural distance). Language distance is an index measuring the closeness of
the main language in the country of origin of an asylum seeker to the main language spoken
19
Note that the fact that we observe the policy measures only for one year, i.e. 2011, prevents us from
including canton fixed effects in the estimation specification.
20
The corresponding data is provided by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) in their
monthly publication on the labor market situation (in German: Die Lage auf dem Arbeitsmarkt) and
includes all registered unemployed people in a canton.
10in the host canton. The index takes a value of 0 if the languages in two places are perfectly
congruent and 1 if there is no congruence at all (i.e., the language distance is maximal). The
source information is the common language index of Melitz and Toubal (2014).21
4 Estimation model
We apply a simple linear model to empirically test whether a less restricted labor market access
indeed leads to higher labor market participation of asylum seekers, and whether there are
differences resulting from the heterogeneity in basic assistance and integration measures. For
the basic estimates on the cantonal level we proceed from the following model:
Yc,t = α + τ1 Accessc,2011 + τ2 Assistancec,2011 + τ3 Integrationc,2011 + βi0 X + υt + .
Thereby, Yct is the employment rate of asylum seekers in canton c and year t. Access captures
the measure for labor market openness, Assistance that for social benefits, and Integration
that for integration promotion, respectively. As mentioned above, we additionally control for a
set of control variables that might be correlated with the cantonal employment rate as well as the
institutional arrangement. These variables are summarized in matrix X and comprise the log
of the cantonal population size, the cantonal unemployment rate, the log of the cantonal GDP
per capita, the employment shares in the catering and lodging, agriculture and construction
industries, the foreigner share, a measure for attitudes towards asylum seekers, as well as the
share of the population speaking a Romance language. In the estimates covering several years,
we further control for a set of time fixed effects υ.
In order to improve the precision of our estimation, we additionally estimate models based on
disaggregated employment rates by country of origin and canton. These models additionally
include country of origin fixed effects to control for the average level of employment for each
nationality. Please note that the estimated effects for the institutional variables should remain
stable because the assignment of asylum seekers to cantons is independent of the country of origin
and thus exogenous to the cantonal policies. However, if there were any remaining selection
driving the empirical findings, this extended specification should strongly change the estimated
effects of our institutional variables. The disaggregated employment rates further allow us to
explore any interaction effect between labor market access and language distance. Standard
21
Researchers at the French research center CEPII constructed the index on common official and native
languages between two countries and the lexical similarity between 200 words of the spoken languages.
Our index is modified by one minus the (estimated) common language distance for the country of origin
to Germany, France or Italy, respectively, depending on the language spoken by the majority of the
population in the host canton. This data is freely available for download at http://www.cepii.fr/
CEPII/en/bdd_modele/presentation.asp?id=19.
11errors are clustered at the level where we measure our policy variable, i.e. the level of the
canton.
5 Results
Descriptive evidence
Figure 2 shows preliminary descriptive evidence about the potential relationship between la-
bor market access regulations for asylum seekers and their employment rate. It visualizes the
development of the employment rate of asylum seekers between 2011 and 2014 in the cantons
which are grouped by the relative openness of their labor market towards asylum seekers. The
dark gray dashed line at the top of the graph represents the six cantons with the most inclusive
policies (high openness). These cantons do not have any additional restrictions when it comes
to access to the labor market. The group with medium openness indicated by the dashed dotted
line comprises fourteen cantons that partly restrict access to the labor market. Finally, the light
gray dashed line at the bottom shows the employment rate for the group of cantons with low
openness. It is revealed that the employment rates are considerably lower in cantons with low
openness. The difference between the group of cantons with the highest openness and the lowest
one amounts to about 10 percentage points in 2011. The figure also shows an overall drop in
the employment rate for all groups after 2013. Various factors could be responsible for this.
One might be a revision of the asylum legislation in 2013, meant to reduce the duration of the
asylum process. The pool of asylum seekers in later years thus includes people with a shorter
duration of stay in Switzerland, who are more likely to face a binding employment ban and have
had less time to seek for work. While this first descriptive finding is interesting, taking into
account other potential determinants and confounders can help to evaluate whether it can be
interpreted causally.
Average effects of cantonal asylum policies
Table 2 presents the estimation results when the full range of variation in all three cantonal
policy measures is exploited and when potential confounders are simultaneously controlled for. In
column (1), using data on the cantonal level between 2011 and 2014, we find that the employment
rate of asylum seekers in cantons with the most liberal labor market access policy (index score
of 1) is, on average, 11 percentage points higher than in cantons with the most restrictive policy
(index score of 0). While taking potential confounders into account, this finding is very similar to
the difference observed in the graphical representation. In column (2), we additionally include
the two other policy indicators for basic assistance and integration. They barely change the
12Figure 2: Employment rates of asylum seekers across groups of cantons
Notes: This graph visualizes the employment rate of asylum seekers across cantons which are
grouped by the openness of their labor market. High openness refers to a group of six cantons
with a score for access to the labor market between 0.76 and 1.00. Medium openness includes
fourteen cantons with a score between 0.41 and 0.75. Low openness refers to four cantons with
a score between 0.00 and 0.40. The lines show the yearly average of the employment rate in
each group.
Data sources: Wichmann et al. (2011) and Swiss State Secretariat for Migration.
coefficient of our main variable of interest. Basic assistance as such is not systematically related
to asylum seekers’ labor market participation. In contrast, extended integration programs are
related to a 2.6 percentage points lower employment rate of asylum seekers. However, note
that the negative effect when in status N does not necessarily mean that integration measures
have no positive (long-term) effect on the chance of being employed. Early integration measures
initially compete with paid employment and the impact might be slow to take effect but long
13lasting. Hence, the potentially positive impact would not materialize in the employment rates
of asylum seekers, but rather in those of PAFs and refugees.
Table 2: Determinants of the employment rate of asylum seekers
Dependant variable Employment rate [0-100%]
2011-2014 2011-2014 2011-2014 2011 2011*
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
Mean dep. variable 7.692 7.692 4.935 5.589 5.644
Labor market access [0-1] 10.57*** 12.24*** 10.59*** 11.17*** 10.68***
(2.132) (2.330) (1.803) (3.608) (3.324)
Basic assistance [0-1] -3.072 0.273 2.916 5.134
(5.655) (3.266) (4.190) (4.334)
Integration [0-1] -2.587* -2.401* -2.551 -3.515*
(1.376) (1.305) (1.966) (1.977)
Population size, ln -2.186*** -2.084*** -0.556 -0.470 -0.541
(0.656) (0.622) (0.514) (0.965) (0.891)
Share of foreign residents 0.166 0.176 0.0313 0.165 0.215
(0.143) (0.154) (0.109) (0.237) (0.218)
Rate of unemployment -3.040*** -2.346* -0.061 -1.506 -0.070
(1.132) (1.259) (1.232) (1.982) (2.339)
GDP per capita, ln -7.271** -7.462** -2.617 -6.301 -2.767
(2.945) (2.670) (2.745) (4.455) (5.136)
Yes-share “against -0.179* -0.180 -0.146* -0.127 -0.015
illegal immigration” (0.100) (0.109) (0.080) (0.113) (0.115)
Fraction of employment in
- catering and lodging 0.840*** 0.849*** 0.335 0.204 0.383
(0.284) (0.287) (0.229) (0.367) (0.367)
- agriculture -1.648*** -1.445*** -0.204 -0.292 0.730
(0.359) (0.404) (0.533) (0.811) (1.137)
- construction -0.0654 -0.0594 0.200 -0.0382 -0.265
(0.579) (0.532) (0.512) (0.750) (0.713)
Fraction of Romance -0.00266 -0.0233 -0.0244 0.0107 -0.00926
language speakers (0.0298) (0.0338) (0.0348) (0.0539) (0.0554)
Year FE Yes Yes Yes No No
Country-of-origin FE No No Yes Yes Yes
No. of observations 96 96 4,014 1,028 1,018
No. of clusters 24 24 24 24 23
Adj.R2 0.736 0.745 0.181 0.197 0.203
Notes: Columns (1) and (2) use data at the cantonal level, and columns (3) to (5) exploit disaggregated
data at the canton-nationality level. * The specification in column (5) is without cantons stating to apply
a total ban. Standard errors are clustered at the cantonal level and are reported in parentheses.
Significance levels: * .05 < p < .1, ** .01 < p < .05, *** p < .01.
Data sources: Wichmann et al. (2011), Swiss State Secretariat for Migration, and Federal Statistical
Office.
14Column (3) presents the resulting estimates using the disaggregated data on the canton-
nationality level (including fixed effects for the country of origin). The coefficient of our main
variable of interest is now more precisely estimated. Moreover, it remains stable. This result
validates that the assignment of asylum seekers is random with regard to nationality and can-
tonal asylum policies.22 In column (4), we concentrate exclusively on data from 2011, as our
policy measures were only collected in that year, and policies might have changed later on. The
coefficient for labor market access again barely changes. Finally, to check whether our results
are driven by the fact that one canton reports not granting labor market access to refugees at
all, we exclude this canton in column (5).23 The effect remains very similar.
Our setting does not allow us to include fixed effects for cantons in order to control for unob-
servable cantonal characteristics, as the policy measures were only collected for one year. This
might, of course, pose a challenge to the causal interpretation of the results presented. If there
are unobserved factors correlated with both the employment rate of asylum seekers and the
labor market access granted by the cantons, our results might be biased. However, we control
for those factors that are most likely to partly determine employment and asylum practices,
i.e. the size of the economy relying on low-skilled workers, the foreigner share, the state of the
economy, and general attitudes towards asylum seekers (Spörnli et al., 1998). The results show
that the partial correlation between labor market access and the employment of asylum seekers
is robust to their inclusion.
Overall, we find a sizeable positive effect of an open labor market policy on the employment rate
of asylum seekers. We can exclude that our main result is driven by a self-selection of asylum
seekers into cantons, which is the main concern for the identification of the effect of labor market
access policies. Moreover, the observation that the coefficient of interest hardly changes from
specification to specification further supports our interpretation of a causal relationship.
Interaction between the effect of labor market access and language distance
After finding that a more open-access type of regulation increases asylum seekers’ employment
rate, we explore whether there is heterogeneity in the effect of openness depending on the
language distance between the language spoken in the country of origin and the one spoken in
the canton the asylum seeker is assigned to. To give an impression of language distances, for
example, a person from Kongo DR or the Ivory Coast assigned to a French speaking canton
would face a language distance of 0.875, while somebody from Georgia in a French speaking
canton would be confronted with a language distance of 0.974.
22
The exogeneity of the assignment of asylum seekers to cantons has also been validated, for example,
by Couttenier et al. (2016).
23
The information is from a statement in the section “travail” in the report of the SODK 2012.
15In an extended estimation model, we interact the variable labor market openness with language
distance. The sample is now restricted to asylum seekers from those countries for which infor-
mation about language distance is available. The estimation results are reported in Table 4 in
the Appendix. The main finding is summarized in Figure 3. It shows the marginal effects of
an open labor market for different levels of language distance when the whole range of distance
measures in our sample is considered (based on the coefficients reported in column (1) of Ta-
ble 4). While the marginal effects are overall positive, we observe a clear negative relationship
with increasing language distance, i.e. the greater the language distance, the lower the positive
effect of labor market openness on asylum seekers’ employment rate. This seems intuitive, as for
them it is likely more difficult to interact and to integrate in a company, and they can potentially
be employed only for a more limited range of tasks.
We undertake a few robustness checks as language distance is unequally distributed in our
sample. Figure 7 in the Appendix shows a histogram for the distribution of language distances,
revealing that only a few observations are characterized by a very short language distance. The
mass of observations lies at values of 0.7 and above. To make sure that our finding is not driven
by these potential outliers, we repeat our estimate excluding the lowest 5 percent and the lowest
10 percent of observations in terms of language distance. The results are reported in columns (2)
and (3) in Table 4, and the marginal effects are visualized in Figures 5 and 6 in the Appendix,
respectively. The relationship remains rather stable and the systematic negative interaction also
remains, suggesting that the positive effect of a liberal labor market access policy is strongest
for asylum seekers facing a relatively short language distance.
6 Conclusion
Many Western countries struggle with the integration of refugees into the labor market (Fasani
et al., 2017). This is not only a tragedy for the migrants themselves, who might be living in a
precarious economic situation and miss opportunities for meaningful engagement. It is also a
threat to social cohesion in the host countries, as it might challenge the support for redistribution.
Recent evidence on employment bans shows that the absence of economic integration in an
early phase of the asylum process can have large negative effects on long-term labor market
participation (Marbach et al., 2017). In the absence of employment bans, there are potentially
many other factors that affect the economic integration of asylum seekers. However, there is
little quantitative evidence about what determines employment take-up during the initial phase
of stay in the host country and how effective any regulation of participation is. This is probably
due to the lack of high-quality data and the difficulty of comparing different asylum policies
across jurisdictions.
16Figure 3: Marginal effects of an inclusive labor market access regime for different levels of
language distance
Notes: This figure visualizes the marginal effect of the interaction between labor market access
and language distance for the whole sample. In order to make the graph readable, we only
visualize it for the top 90% of language distances. The graph for the complete range can be
found in Figure 4 in the Appendix. For a language distance of 0.875 (bottom quartile), the
marginal effect of an open labor market amounts to a 10.92 percentage point higher employment
rate. The corresponding figure for a high language distance of 0.974 (top quartile) is 6.13
percentage points. The corresponding estimates are reported in column (1) of Table 4 in the
Appendix.
In our analysis, we focus on the early economic integration of asylum seekers and provide a
macro evaluation of the experiences in Swiss cantons applying different asylum policies. We
thus learn about the effects of asylum policies from the institutionalized trial and error process
in the Swiss federal system (Mahnig and Wimmer 2003; Gundelach and Manatschal 2017). We
can rely on detailed information about labor market access regulations, integration measures,
and social welfare provisions for asylum seekers across Swiss cantons. All these policies are
developed to implement the same federal law. Furthermore, in our setting a potential self-
selection of employable asylum seekers into regions where employment is easier can be excluded,
17as asylum seekers are exogenously assigned to their canton of residence (and are normally not
allowed to move to a different canton). We find that during the period between 2011 and 2014,
with a medium inflow of asylum seekers, cantons offering the most inclusive access to their labor
market are able to successfully integrate many more asylum seekers into the local economy, as
reflected in a 11 percentage point higher employment rate compared to cantons with the most
restrictive regime. Integration programs compete in the short-run with employment and reduce
its rate among asylum seekers by 2.6 percentage points. We do not find a systematic effect
on participation in the labor market related to the incentives generated by specific provisions
regarding social welfare. The immediate effects of an inclusive regime are found to be greater
for asylum seekers originating from a country where the main language is relatively closer to
the one in their host canton. While language skills are important per se for successful economic
integration, they seem to work in a complementary manner to the inclusive labor market access
regulations.
Employment during the asylum process might be related to systematic long-term consequences
for those asylum seekers who are granted refugee status. Employment experience seems partic-
ularly valuable if asylum seekers have gone through a lengthy application process. According to
the results in Hainmueller et al. (2016), the penalty of a one year longer process on the probabil-
ity of being employed (a year after getting refugee status with subsidiary protection) is about 5
percentage points. They further find that employment during the application phase is a strong
predictor of later employment. Employment in the year before the decision increases the like-
lihood of employment in the subsequent year by 48 percentage points. Further, in the German
context, Marbach et al. (2017) document that being exposed to a 7-month longer employment
ban during the application period reduces the employment probability after admission by about
20 percentage points. Thus, our findings are particularly important if the admission of asylum
seekers or their temporary stay is likely (a conclusion very similar to that in a recent report of
the OECD 2016).
Our results and considerations lead to several follow-up questions. First, we would like to better
understand the conditions under which efforts to integrate asylum seekers into the labor market
at an early stage of the asylum process lead to an increase in the inflow of asylum seekers. This
is a pressing issue in the political discourse. Second, one might ask what motivates the different
regulations of labor market access across cantons. What is the political economics behind it?
And third, there are the interactions with migration policy more generally. In particular, it
would be important to understand how inclusive labor market access regulations moderate the
perception of asylum seekers and attitudes towards immigration. These issues must be left to
future research.
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21Appendix
Table 3: Employment rates of asylum seekers from the most common countries of origin
Rank Number of Employment rate [0-100%]
employables 2011 2012 2013 2014 overall
Eritrea 1 11,298 1.17 0.78 1.19 0.37 0.72
Sri Lanka 2 5,842 31.68 33.36 27.45 13.38 27.75
Syria 3 5,480 8.79 7.63 4.85 1.45 4.84
Afghanistan 4 4,517 6.6 6.25 8.22 4.67 6.77
China 5 3,965 1.12 1.45 2.91 4.46 2.5
Turkey 6 2,423 11.32 8.91 8.06 9.3 9.45
Iran 7 1,952 10.71 7.53 9.02 7.67 8.81
Nigeria 8 1,871 0.15 0 0 0 0.05
Tunesia 9 1,645 0.76 0.21 0 0.79 0.49
Others 19,745 4.58 2.98 3.82 3.37 3.69
Note: The number of employable people captures the total number of asylum seekers from
a given country of origin between the ages of 18 and 65 who were allocated to one of the 26
cantons between the years 2011 and 2014.
Data source: Swiss State Secretariat for Migration.
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